Diplomacy & Crisis News

As the volatile conflict in eastern Ukraine enters its fourth year, one million children are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance &#8211 nearly double the number this time last year, the United Nations Children&#39s Fund (UNICEF) reported today.

Despite progress in the realization of children’s rights, as set out in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which entered into force on 2 September 1990, too many commitments remain unfulfilled. This is particularly true for children deprived of liberty, who often remain invisible and forgotten.

« Quand on a dépassé 30 ans, on ne peut plus faire ce travail. On est trop vieux, le corps ne tient pas », assure Mme Phan Duyen. À 32 ans, employée d'une usine japonaise d'alcool de riz, elle est ravie d'avoir quitté son poste à la fabrication pour accéder à celui de contrôleuse de qualité. On la retrouve avec son mari et sept de ses collègues dans son petit logement coquet au fond d'une ruelle, dans une partie très populaire du 7e district d'Ho Chi Minh-Ville (ex-Saïgon). Tous confirment la pénibilité du travail à la production en 3 5 8, avec un seul jour de congé par semaine. Trop peu pour pouvoir faire un aller-retour en province, d'où ils viennent tous. À peine assez pour recouvrer ses forces.

Pour autant, personne ne se plaint. À l'image d'une société au dynamisme à toute épreuve, ces jeunes regardent vers l'avenir. Ils veulent « mettre de l'argent de côté » et retourner un jour au village, les uns pour « ouvrir un commerce », les autres pour « construire une maison afin de la louer » ou encore pour « agrandir la ferme familiale ». Seules deux jeunes femmes n'envisagent pas de repartir à la campagne. La première prend des cours d'anglais le soir, dans un centre situé à près d'une heure à moto de son dortoir, dans l'espoir d'obtenir un jour un emploi de bureau en ville ; la seconde a payé 90 millions de dongs (un an et demi de salaire), grâce à des économies et à des emprunts à la famille, pour se former dans un institut qui lui garantit un emploi au Japon pendant trois ans. Le Vietnam a signé des conventions avec plusieurs pays afin de se lancer dans une curieuse expérience : l'exportation de main-d'œuvre (115 000 personnes en 2016) (1). En attendant que leurs rêves se réalisent, tous ces jeunes, aux salaires de base très faibles (moins de 2 millions de dongs, 85 euros par mois), effectuent des heures supplémentaires, payées à 150 %. Théoriquement, celles-ci ne peuvent pas dépasser deux cents heures annuelles, trois cents dans les cas exceptionnels, soit quatre à six heures par semaine en plus des quarante-huit heures légales. De toute évidence, ces ouvriers en font davantage. Sans toujours gagner plus.

Plus tard dans la conversation, on apprendra que seules certaines sont payées ; les autres sont transformées en « heures de récupération » à prendre quand la direction le décide. « On voudrait les garder pour la fête du Têt [en début d'année, lorsque chacun rejoint sa famille], mais ce n'est pas possible, explique l'un des jeunes hommes. La direction nous oblige à les prendre par demi-journées durant lesquelles on ne peut rien faire. » Surtout, insiste Mme Phan Duyen, « avec ce système, on ne bénéficie pas de la majoration. On y perd, l'entreprise y gagne ». Et le syndicat ? Question incongrue. Il existe, bien sûr, mais pas pour soutenir les revendications…

Pourtant, 5 722 grèves ont été répertoriées entre 1995 et 2015, selon Mme Do Quynh Chi, qui dirige le Centre de recherche sur les relations de travail, une sorte de cabinet de conseil ayant pignon sur rue. Mais aucune n'a été déclenchée par la Confédération générale du travail du Vietnam (CGTV) — ce qui est bien ennuyeux car, si le droit de grève figure dans la Constitution depuis 1995, il ne peut en principe s'exercer que sous la houlette du syndicat unique. Alors, on s'arrange avec les mots, et les grèves deviennent des… « arrêts de travail ». Quel que soit le nom qu'on leur donne, les débrayages deviennent de plus en plus fréquents : moins d'une centaine de mouvements en 2000 ; aux alentours de cinq cents en 2016. Dans 70 % des cas, ils se déroulent dans des entreprises étrangères, là où la concentration ouvrière est la plus forte (les trois quarts des entreprises vietnamiennes sont de taille petite ou moyenne). Principaux motifs : les salaires, les conditions de travail et la qualité de l'alimentation dans les cantines. « Le plus souvent, raconte Mme Do Quynh Chi, un groupe de travailleurs apporte les revendications à la direction, ou parfois au syndicat officiel. Il n'obtient pas de réponse. La grève éclate. » C'est alors le branle-bas de combat. La CGTV se mobilise, servant d'intermédiaire avec la direction.

La plupart du temps, note Mme Do Quynh Chi, les demandes sont satisfaites. Les grèves durent rarement longtemps. Quand il s'agit de hausses de salaire, celles-ci sont généralement étendues à toutes les entreprises du parc industriel où est implanté le groupe et à toutes celles qui ont la même nationalité, les employeurs se coordonnant par origine géographique.

Il arrive que les « arrêts de travail » mettent en cause le gouvernement lui-même. En mars 2015, les 90 000 ouvriers de l'usine Yue Yuen (du groupe taïwanais Pou Chen), dans le parc industriel de Tan Binh, à Ho Chi Minh-Ville, ont stoppé les machines et bloqué l'autoroute afin de protester contre une loi qui réduisait leurs droits à la retraite. Le gouvernement a dû amender son projet. Du jamais-vu.

Dans la foulée, il a promis de vérifier que les entreprises verseraient leur dû aux caisses de sécurité sociale et qu'il les traînerait en justice si nécessaire. En effet, comme d'autres multinationales, Pou Chen encaisse les prélèvements sur les salaires mais ne les reverse pas, pas plus qu'elle n'apporte sa quote-part obligatoire pour l'assurance-maladie, le chômage et la retraite. Visiblement, la menace n'a guère été suivie d'effet : lors de la dernière session de l'Assemblée nationale, en novembre 2016, le ministre du travail a rappelé que les dettes sociales dépassaient les 13 000 milliards de dongs (près de 550 millions d'euros), et il a fustigé une fois de plus les dirigeants d'entreprise.

Là comme ailleurs, la CGTV est hors course. Il faut dire que les dirigeants syndicaux sont payés par les directions d'entreprise elles-mêmes. Quant à l'élection des représentants des salariés, elle demeure purement formelle. Dans ces conditions, on comprend que la combativité ne soit pas dans les gènes du syndicat. Ses responsables citent plus volontiers leur rôle d'« harmonisation » des relations employeurs-salariés que de défense des travailleurs (2). « Dans les textes, assure M. Erwin Schweisshelm, directeur de la Fondation Friedrich Ebert, spécialisée dans les questions sociales, la volonté de réforme existe. Les dirigeants ont conscience que, avec l'“économie de marché à orientation socialiste”, le système ne peut être le même que du temps du socialisme tout court. Ils essaient de s'engager dans des négociations collectives. » Mais la mue s'avère ardue.

Paradoxalement, les partisans d'un changement comptaient sur le partenariat transpacifique, emmené par Washington, pour bousculer l'ordre établi. Les États-Unis garants du progrès social ? Voilà qui aurait constitué une première mondiale. Certes, l'accord commercial prévoyait explicitement (chapitre 19) l'arrivée du pluralisme syndical — qui n'est pas forcément synonyme d'amélioration des conditions de vie et de travail. Il n'empêche que le gouvernement vietnamien et M. Barack Obama ont signé un accord détaillant la marche à suivre pour construire des syndicats à l'américaine (3). Régulièrement, le grand ami du Pacifique envoyait ses spécialistes pour vérifier le chemin parcouru. Rien ne dit que M. Donald Trump poursuivra dans cette voie.

(1) « L'exportation de main-d'œuvre augmente au fil des années », Le Courrier du Vietnam, 14 décembre 2016.

(2) Cf. le documentaire de Tran Phuong Thao Rêves d'ouvrières, 2006, et le film de Doan Hong Lê À qui appartient la terre ?, Ateliers Varan, Paris, 2013.

(3) « US-VN plan for the enhancement of trade and labour relations » (PDF), Bureau du représentant des États-Unis pour le commerce, 4 février 2016.

Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro d’hiver de Politique étrangère (n°4/2016). Rémy Hémez, chercheur au Laboratoire de recherche sur la défense (LRD) à l’Ifri, propose une analyse de l’ouvrage de Al J. Venter, The Chopper Boys. Helicopter Warfare in Africa (Hélion & Company, 2016, 296 pages).

The Chopper Boys. Helicopter Warfare in Africa est une réédition revue et augmentée d’un ouvrage paru en 1994. Le journaliste sud-africain Al J. Venter est un bon connaisseur des guerres africaines : il a commencé sa carrière de correspondant de guerre au Nigeria en 1965 et a couvert ensuite de nombreux conflits : Rhodésie, Soudan, Sierra Leone, etc.

La couverture de ce volume représentant des hélicoptères Tigre et un Gazelle attire immédiatement l’œil du lecteur français. Ce dernier est cependant rapidement déçu puisque la légende de cette photographie indique que ces appareils appartiennent à l’armée de l’Air : or ils sont de l’Aviation légère de l’armée de Terre (ALAT). C’est là un détail pour beaucoup, pourtant symptomatique des imperfections qui viennent émailler les contributions sur l’action des hélicoptères français en Afrique. C’est ainsi que les chapitres sur l’Algérie (1954-1962), les guerres du Tchad (1969-1987) et le Mali (2013) sont imprécis et incomplets. Dommage, surtout si l’on considère que la guerre d’Algérie fut en quelque sorte la première guerre des hélicoptères, et que de bonnes sources en anglais existent sur le sujet. Enfin, et pour finir sur le cas français, il est étonnant que l’intervention en Libye de 2011 n’y soit pas traitée, tant l’ALAT y a joué un rôle clé, déjà bien documenté.

En fait, l’auteur ne vise ni l’exhaustivité ni un caractère scientifique. Il procède par touches, sans se soucier de chronologie. On trouve ainsi dans ce livre 36 chapitres très variés et de qualité inégale sur les Russes en Angola, les guerres portugaises en Afrique, l’opération britannique Palisser en Sierra Leone, ou encore l’intervention américaine en Somalie. Mais le cœur de l’ouvrage et la majorité de ses chapitres tournent autour des guerres de frontières sud-africaines (1966-1988) et du conflit en Rhodésie. Ces parties forment le véritable intérêt du livre. On y trouve par exemple de bonnes informations sur les Fire Forces rhodésiennes, ces équipes aéromobiles et aéroportées mises en place dans le cadre de la lutte contre les mouvements de libération zimbabwéens. Elles constituent un bon exemple d’adaptation tactique mais aussi technique, impliquant notamment l’ajout d’armement de bord sur des hélicoptères Alouette III. Les opérations menées par les Koevoet – une unité contre-insurrectionnelle sud-africaine – en liaison avec les hélicoptères donnent aussi lieu à des développements intéressants. The Chopper Boys contient aussi des témoignages rares, comme un récit du capitaine sud-africain Tinus von Risburg, dont l’hélicoptère fut touché par une roquette lors d’une opération menée en Angola contre le SWAPO en 1980, et qui rejoignit la frontière sud-africaine à pied en échappant à ses poursuivants.

Cet ouvrage de grand format très richement illustré n’est pas désagréable à lire. Il est intéressant en ce qui concerne les guerres des frontières sud-africaines et le conflit rhodésien, tous deux peu abordés en France. Mais le manque de rigueur scientifique de l’ensemble, l’absence de mise en perspective conceptuelle et historique de la guerre des hélicoptères, et ses impasses importantes l’empêchent d’aspirer au statut de livre de référence, sur un sujet qui en mériterait pourtant un.

Rémy Hémez

Pour vous abonner à Politique étrangère, cliquez ici.

It should be winter on the Arctic pole &#8211 the northern most point in the world &#8211 but the equivalent of heatwaves have passed over the region this season melting the sea ice volume to a record low in January, the United Nations meteorological agency said.

Amid worsening of an already devastating drought in Somalia, United Nations agencies have underlined that only a massive and immediate scale-up of humanitarian assistance can help the country avoid falling into another catastrophe.

Luwowo Coltan mine near Rubaya, North Kivu. (MONUSCO/Sylvain Liechti)

The mining industry has recently descended on Cape Town for the Investing in African Mining Indaba conference, Africa’s biggest mining conference, which wrapped up last week. At the top of the agenda for many of the delegates was still the issue of cobalt, which companies such as Apple have moved to the category of conflict mineral in regards to sourcing it.

Despite moves by the Trump administration to relax laws on conflict minerals, a recent report by RCS Global’s Dr Nicholas Garrett, director at one of the world’s leading raw materials supply chain auditors, revealed the extent of the challenge to the market in finding ‘ethical’ supplies of the mineral, which is being mooted for inclusion in the controversial conflict minerals category.

Over 60% of the global cobalt supply comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where a legacy of civil war, the persistence of de-industrialized, basic forms of mining, and a weak state all come together to make ethical and transparent sourcing hugely challenging.

“[DRC] mining operations tend to be split between what is called artisanal and small scale mining […] where you have small, independent miners extracting cobalt but hand or with rudimentary tools. In the upstream you also have larger industrial miners extracting cobalt through modern mechanized mining techniques. In the DRC, some industrial mines purchase artisanal production to supplement their own industrial production. For the artisanal production cobalt ore is then sold through local traders who sell the mineral in bulk to international traders and buyers, including refiners,” Dr Garrett says.

In response to complaints of unsafe conditions or labour violations at these artisanal mines, some companies, including Apple, who rely on the mineral to help power their products, have already prescribed cobalt as a conflict mineral, overnight increasing the pressure on the wider electronics markets to do the same. But at the same time demand is set to rise in 2017 as the nascent electric vehicle market goes mainstream. The mineral’s provenance is rapidly becoming a bellwether issue for observers interested in how the wider minerals mining sector is evolving in terms of ethics and transparency.

“Increasingly regulators, NGOs and consumers are requiring brand companies to take a degree of responsibility for their activities in the supply chains […]. The worldwide response to conflict minerals has demonstrated that they do have the power to influence the entire supply chain.” Dr Garrett tells African Business.

The goal for downstream businesses from Tesla to Huwai is how to secure their cobalt supply in an increasingly squeezed market while also proving to their customers and regulators that their supply chain is transparent and ethical. In the last year, regulators in the U.S. and China have intimated that scrutiny will be further tightened while the EU formally announced it would implement a new framework and new regulation to force greater mineral supply chain transparency.

Rising supply chain standards

But the market is responding. According to Dr Garrett, RCS Global itself has researchers, advisors and auditors physically on the ground in mine sites in Africa and other producing regions plus staff in China, the U.S. and Europe who engage with the firms responsible for moving the mineral from mine to market Fine. His firm checks these actors’ facilities and activities as well as working with the industry bodies to develop the systems, processes and tools to support responsible sourcing of the mineral. Other auditors are also now offering similar services as demand for due diligence increases.

But downstream businesses are also directly addressing the issue of supply chain standards for themselves, setting up the Responsible Cobalt Initiative. The driving force behind the initiative is the Chinese Chamber of Commerce for Metals, Minerals and Chemicals Importers and Exporters, but companies ranging from HP to Sony are also involved.

Dr Garrett, this move is hardly surprising: “It is now both legally and ethically the responsibility of downstream companies—those that ultimately use the raw material in their products—to ensure actors in their supply chain are adhering to the highest standards.”

Meanwhile with the DRC set to remain the dominant player in the cobalt production, ensuring supply can be verified as ethical and transparent will be key for cobalt producers and downstream customers, he says. Over the last two years cobalt production there has remained stable at 63,000 metric tonnes with an increase in production possible in coming years, dwarfing its competitors.

He explains: “Sourcing can continue as long as [cobalt] shipments are tracked down to mine sites and the integrity of the chain of custody can be assured. There are systems out there, like the Better Sourcing Program, which operationalize hands on due diligence approach in the upstream and are designed to operate in conflict-affected and high-risk areas.”

If firms can secure ethical cobalt supplies he thinks, it will also go a long way to proving real progress in the wider African mineral sector. Only time will tell if this can be achieved but with the Trump administration now considering using an executive order to repeal U.S. legislation (part of the Frank-Dodd act) covering transparent supply chain sourcing in the name of reducing bureaucratic burdens on business, the issue is suddenly looking very topical.

The post Ethical Cobalt Extraction & Trump’s Possible Rules Repeal appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has welcomed the rescission the Gambia’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The United Nations has condemned the terrorist attack on worshippers at a Sufi shrine in Sehwan, in Sindh, Pakistan, today, which reportedly left dozens dead and hundreds injured, and for which the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh) has claimed responsibility.

With the Trump administration having introduced “alternative facts” into the U.S. political lexicon, rational and objective analyses of the threats facing America are more important than ever. At the same time, the administration’s intolerance of alternative points of view decreases the likelihood that they will influence policy.

The National Intelligence Council’s (NIC) latest quadrennial report—Global Trends: Paradox of Progress—invites needed debate over where the world is headed over the next two decades. The report arrived in the wake of President Trump’s unexpected victory and is a chance to assess whether some of the most pressing foreign policy topics are being considered from all angles. On one such topic the report points to some fresh thinking: just how big a threat is Russia?

With discussions on Russia focused with the Trump-Putin relationship, the report offers useful comparative data points. Projecting to 2035, it expects Russia’s population to be slightly more than 1/3 the size of the U.S.’ (135.6 million and 365.2 million respectively). Additionally, after a period where Russian life expectancy plummeted immediately after the collapse of the communist regime, the country will experience only small gains in life expectancy by 2035 (67.1 years for men, 77.8 years for women) and will remain far behind America (80.4 years for men, 83.9 years for women). Russia’s population will also be slightly older than America’s in 2035 (Russia’s median age is projected to be 43.6 years, compared with 40.8 years for America).

By the numbers then, former President Barack Obama was on solid statistical ground when, during his final press conference last December, he described Russia as a “smaller” and “weaker” country. How, then, could it significantly weaken America?

The report cites further economic pressures that could inhibit Russia’s ability to project power. If global growth were to weaken over a lengthy period of time, energy prices would likely decrease, undercutting Russia’s chief source of economic strength and one of its main levers to exert political pressure on its near abroad. Meanwhile, the more nations seek to move away from fossil fuels to combat climate change, the more demand for Russia’s hydrocarbons reserves could weaken, further impacting its economy.

Despite the risks to its economic prospects, the NIC considers projections based on Russia’s recent actions that would see it continue to build its regional influence. In a section considering the near-term prospects for Eurasia, the report concludes that “Russia’s aggressive foreign policy will be a source of considerable volatility in the next five years.”

One of the report’s scenarios sees an international system devolving to individual nations seeking to be “islands in a sea of volatility.” This scenario predicts Russian actions that harken back to George Kennan’s Cold War-era description of Russia’s view of itself, defending its sphere of influence against what it sees as an ever-encroaching world. In this projection, Russia will continue to be active in the former USSR territories both to re-assert its great power status and, in its view, to protect itself. At stake is the independence of the former Soviet satellites and the degree to which America and its NATO allies will defend their security guarantee.

Importantly, the NIC explores the degree to which China’s rise in Asia will impact Russia. Two American antagonists, united in their opposition to U.S. influence in Asia, are likely to devote increasing attention to their own rivalry. “To counter Western attempts to weaken and isolate Russia,” the report reads in a section on spheres of influence, “Moscow will accommodate Beijing’s rise in the near term but ultimately will balk before becoming a junior partner to China—which would run counter to Russia’s great power self-image.”

One weakness of predictive reports is a tendency to assert predictions that are in fact retellings of the past and affirmations of the present. “Moscow will test NATO and European resolve,” the report predicts, “seeking to undermine Western credibility.” This is a timeless statement of Russian policy since the end of World War II, and therefore a safe one to make.

Overall, however, the NIC report delivers on a needed premise: to challenge the discussion on global threats to expand beyond clichés and into fresh thinking. Across its different scenarios, the NIC presents a picture of the world to come as more complex, divided, and volatile. It stops short of flatly predicting the world will be a more dangerous place in 2035, but that perspective permeates its findings. That is enough to give today’s foreign policy planners pause.

The post What does the National Intelligence Council think of Russia? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

U.S. President Donald Trump (R) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a joint press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, February 15, 2017. (AFP / Saul Loeb)

Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump met yesterday. There are many things to unpack from the first meeting of these two world leaders. Here are some takeaways from a few of the issues that were covered, following their short press conference.

Bibi’s Untenable Coalition

Members of Netanyahu’s own coalition warned him not to mention a two-state solution in his talks with President Trump. They warned him the “earth would shake” if he supported a Palestinian state, a concept he has supported—though tenuously—since 2009.

Netanyahu’s biggest threat these days does not come from the Palestinians, the Iranians or the UN Security Council, but rather from the Israeli right. He needs them to keep his coalition in place, and he no longer enjoys the bogeyman that was President Obama. With an overtly friendly American president—the first Republican in the White House concurrently with Netanyahu’s long reign—placing international blame elsewhere will be much harder to accomplish.

Bibi seems to understand that Trump, due to his unpredictability, is not a man to be trifled with. Trump speaks (shallowly) of his love of the Jewish state, but he is unlikely to remain silent if he feels that Netanyahu is embarrassing or undermining him. It’s not hard to imagine an early morning tweet storm from @RealDonaldTrump or @POTUS literally leading to new elections in Israel.

On America’s [New] Foreign Policy Toward Israel

President Trump undermined decades of American foreign policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, when he declared “I’m looking at two-state and at one-state, and I like the one that both parties like.” This is a fine concept for a neutral party, but Trump is now representing generations of diplomatic efforts aimed specifically at creating a two-state solution to the conflict. President Trump, new to government and diplomacy, still doesn’t seem to understand the weight of his words as they relate to American foreign policy.

Settlements

The joint press conference opened with each leader delivering brief statements; Trump kicked things off by reading some prepared remarks: “The United States will encourage a peace, and really a great peace, deal. But it is the parties themselves who must directly negotiate such an agreement. Both sides will have to make compromises.” Trump—the king of adding spontaneous asides to his prepared statements—then looked at Bibi and added this little doozy: “you know that, right?”

Bibi strongly stated that settlements are not an obstacle to peace. Despite Trump’s appointment of an ambassador to Israel who has helped raise millions of dollars to fund settlement expansion and the fact that his trusted and powerful son-in-law has also helped fund West Bank settlements, he clearly isn’t quite as convinced, stating that he would “like to see [Israel] hold back on settlements for a little bit.”

Why would Israel hold back on settlements if they weren’t an obstacle to peace? A good answer did not emerge from the remarks or the Q & A that followed.

Anti-Semitism

When Trump was asked by an Israeli reporter what he would say to those in the Jewish community who “believe and feel that your administration is playing with xenophobia and maybe racist tones,” he responded by bragging about his electoral college victory.

“Well, I just want to say that we are, you know, very honored by the victory that we had: 306 Electoral College votes. We were not supposed to crack 220. You know that, right? There was no way to 221, but then they said there’s no way to 270.”

Moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem

Candidate Trump promised to move the American embassy to Jerusalem. It is an easy promise to make, a far harder one to fulfill.

Such a move might give Bibi some positive talking points with his rightward flank back home, but in the long run it would cost him more political capital with America than he is probably prepared to accept. And it is hard to imagine such a move not leading directly to bloodshed.

Trump purportedly had plans to make the U.S. Embassy move his first act as President. Literally. He allegedly planned to declare a directive to move the embassy at 12:01 on Inauguration Day. But he was seemingly convinced of the broader political ramifications of this choice and opted instead to push off the decision, like many of his predecessors before him.

When asked about the move, Trump said, “I’d love to see that happen, we’re looking at that very, very strongly. We’re looking at that with great care, and we’ll see what happens.”

For a straight shooter who has proven himself to mix things up quickly and sometimes without foresight, it is interesting to see him moderate this particular campaign promise. It is also promising that he understands—for now anyway—that if he wants to be remembered for brokering “the ultimate deal,” he can’t simply do anything he pleases in the build-up.

Pre-conditions for Peace

Prime Minister Netanyahu has a long history of demanding the Palestinians drop all pre-conditions to direct negations while simultaneously setting forth several of his own.

A quick Twitter search of @Netanyahu and @IsraeliPM finds over a dozen tweets stating that preconditions are impediments to peace and that he is prepared to come to the negotiating table, so long as there are no Palestinian preconditions in place.

I have written before about Bibi’s blind spot regarding his own pre-conditions. Today, he again undermined his longstanding argument by clarifying his own pre-conditions that must be met before he will come to the table:

The first will always be a deal breaker for the Palestinians. While they have long recognized Israel’s legitimacy as a state, 20% of the population of Israel is Palestinian. President Abbas isn’t going to recognize Israel as a Jewish state any sooner than the U.S. is going to recognize Taiwan as the legitimate seat of the Chinese state.

The second “prerequisite” is likely to be attained, but only within the confines of a grander peace deal. Why would the Palestinians acquiesce on the right to retain security control over their new state without receiving something in return from Israel? The very concept of preconditions declare that the issue is not up for negotiation—neutralizing it down the road as a bargaining chip.

The Palestinians won’t cede this chip in advance, just like Bibi will not accept preconditions on Jerusalem, the Palestinian Right of Return or settlement expansion. And Bibi knows it. But his language allows him to talk about peace on the world stage while also ensuring that no progress is actually possible.

Netanyahu is well on his way to becoming the longest-serving Prime Minister in Israel’s history. He has shown again and again that he will do anything in order to retain that seat. But really, Netanyahu is not so much Israel’s bold leader as he is a somewhat powerful member of the ruling coalition, working desperately to keep it from falling apart.

Trump threw a few barbs and Netanyahu weathered them. But he also got to stand on the stage as Trump—purposefully or inadvertently—changed America’s longstanding policy regarding the two-state solution.

All in all, this was a good trip for Netanyahu: he can go home with some breathing room from his own conservative wing. At least for a little while.

Follow me on Twitter @jlemonsk.

The post Takeaways from the Trump-Netanyahu Meeting appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The top United Nations humanitarian official in Yemen today said he was extremely saddened and appalled by the airstrikes that killed six women and a girl gathering for a funeral in a private residence in the Arhab District of Sana’a Governorate yesterday.

Assurances have been given to humanitarians by the Syrian Government that obstacles to aid deliveries will be removed across the war-torn country, a senior United Nations adviser said today.

Despite the president's recent remarks, the two-state solution is still the only path to Middle East peace that serves U.S. interests.

Les Cahiers d'éducation politique, philosophique et spirituelle reviennent sur plusieurs rencontres entre représentants des sociétés civiles française et tunisienne à l'heure où les incertitudes planent encore sur l'avenir de la Tunisie. (N° 362, janvier, mensuel, 6 euros. — Paris.)

http://www.lvn.asso.fr/spip.php?rub...

The Islamic State has its own Common Core — with a macabre twist.

An interview with the Belgrade mayor's ex-wife led thousands to take to the streets.

The President wanted the White House to dominate the country, but he’s too disorganized to even run the executive branch.

What coincidental timing.

I think we will know by the end of today. My gut feeling is that it is still on, and could be announced this afternoon.